


True Hallucinations

by goodnightfern



Series: The Mothership Connection [1]
Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Advanced Horticulture, All Ships in Varying Stages of "Huh?", Capitalism, Established VKaz, F/M, Horror, M/M, Other, Parasite!Kaz, Pseudoscience, Revolver Ocelot's Guide to Getting Your Man Back, The Author's Gameplay Style, guns of the patriots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-12 10:21:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12957171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodnightfern/pseuds/goodnightfern
Summary: Quiet knows something she really, really isn't supposed to know.





	1. GERMINATE

**Author's Note:**

> *rolls on the floor* no, I don't have the next five chapters of this sitting in drafts or anything. but if you've seen my twitter, you know I've been having Thoughts, so, let's just go for it.

Shit happens. At some point you botch a job. Right, she was too confident, too trusting of shady intel - seriously, _spies_ , and maybe that XOF gig turned out to be more _questionable_ than she ever suspected. As she found out when she woke up as a colony of world-eating plants, but, point being. At some point you realize someone way, way bigger than you is pulling all the strings and there you are, the big badass assassin caught in the web. 

Don't some spiders inject a little something into their prey to numb them before going in for the kill? That's right. Parasites saw a camel spider numb a butterfly her third or thirtieth day in Afghanistan. It was neat. 

The thing is, it's not like she didn’t know her target. She'd say most people with eyes can recognize someone even if it's from behind. Especially after that mission "briefing" that was more like weeks of slideshows and tapes and Skull Face's interminable lectures. Big Boss, that's Big Boss, watch out because he might be hiding and we have no idea what's been happening in Dhekelia. Sure.

Wasn’t it convenient - in the same hospital room where it just so turned out the Soviet super-spy had been vanishing to for years - that the other patient happened to have a completely bandaged face?

Same voice. Same thick ass as he did nine years ago. She knew her target.

Then there's this guy who just blinks down at her while his little wives Targets Number Two and Three bicker. Who looks bashfully away from her tits and tries to give her a blanket in a helicopter plastered with pictures of goats. With scars on his face that, haha, just so happen to make it look like his face was sewn on. Weren't they a lot fresher in the hospital room?

It sounds insane. But dying only to be unceremoniously reincarnated as a glorified plant zombie is pretty insane, too.

Skullface could nut his diseased pants it works so perfectly. She always thought she could’ve been a spy - a good one, too - and hell, just check out the intelligence she’s got now. Flawless infiltration. The last infiltrator who got within thirty yards of Diamond Dogs - well, they were never even able to find the body - and now Revolver goddamn Ocelot is handing her a gun so she can show off. People skills her ass. She doesn't even need to talk.

About that. Too bad for Skullface. The thing is, she didn't need to spend a week actually in the AO to start hearing talk about the hottest new PMC. It's the dirty gossip in every camp from Somalia to Iraq to even the Punjab, and most of them don't even know who the fuck Big Boss actually is. No, it's Miller's brand of gonzo capitalism rampaging across the Middle East that's laying all the groundwork Skull Face ever needed to infiltrate. Skull Face doesn't get that not everyone fights out of burning passion for revenge and the motherland. 

Yeah, she's heard back when XOF got cut off from Cipher it was pretty dire. But waiting for her target in Afghanistan, parasites drifting, she almost wishes she had joined up with Diamond Dogs the money sounds so good. Then again, she's never had to herd goats for three shiny pennies a day.

If her boss wanted to get in so badly he could have, she doesn't know, grabbed any random village potter turned artillery man via carpetbombing and delivered him straight to heaven. No, instead he resurrects her, the best thing that ever happened to him, and says "Look, you're already dead, so go kill the guy who did it," - paraphrased, of course. 

With the goddamn English language.

He speaks so many languages you'd think he'd know how quickly words are borrowed and shared and she couldn't even ask him, is AK-47 Russian or English? Because it's the same in Afrikaans and Kikongo. Just so you know.

Really, she's been finished with his shit since before she woke up scattered into a billion microscopic organisms that never, ever shut up.

So when she lands on Diamond Dogs, her first thought is, okay. Let's regroup here. Proper recon is the foundation of any successful mission. She'll figure... something out.

She really, really wasn't expecting the body double is all. It makes her head hurt just looking at him, or else it's just the parasites vibrating again. It might explain where the hell Miller and Ocelot got all the money from, if they're pulling some kind of fast one on the world, but the truth is they're twenty thousand leagues ahead of her with this one.

The body double just stands dumbly at the helipad when the real commanders drag her off to prod her a bit. They don’t even ask what she knows about the real Big Boss, even though they have to suspect she was at Dhekelia. But Miller just whines about Cipher while Ocelot stares at her like everyone's least favorite uncle. 

Cipher? Isn’t that - wait, wasn't that how they came up with the money for this base? The whole time XOF figured Miller and Ocelot must be running scared these assholes were off making body doubles and buying helicopters. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that cocksucking king Kaz would go crawling back for cash. 

But no, this mouthbreather is just hissing to her about “Snake”. 

Wait a fucking second. 

Does he actually not know? 

Don’t tell her she knows something these two don’t. 

For sure not the supposed Soviet super spy - okay, he might know. The spies these days are all about that psychic psyops shit. Yeah, they’ve had his type in XOF. Fake as shit, all of them. That half-smile plays under his greasy rat fur mustache while Miller stomps and flails with his cane.

She didn't miss that part. The story is Miller was captured in some Soviet outpost. Some game he was up to with his GRU boyfriend, sure. But that's a real peg leg he's stomping. That coat sleeve is empty. And Ocelot, Shaka-shaka whatever, master of torture and interrogation, just folds his arms and leans back in his chair. 

Somehow, just somehow… she has a feeling she knows something she isn’t supposed to know. 

That nobody is supposed to know.

Ah, fuck. That’s just perfect.

She might be a little bit in the shit here.

Ocelot finally tells Miller to give it a rest, they’ll let her sit in the brig if she wants to so badly. Miller just stomps off, and then she’s alone with Ocelot.

Now things might get real. The parasites quiver, wanting to disperse, but… it might not be a good idea to let them know she can do that right off the bat. Let them think they’ve got her.

“I'd like you to visit medical first,” is all he says. “Though you seemed to have healed from the shots the Boss gave you. I'm sure you understand why.” He smiles. It could be disarming. Aw, she's such a scientific curiosity.

Right, then. She's going to - do that then. Play it safe to start. 

Ocelot bemusedly hovers around the hospital room before taking a chair just outside the circle of nurses taking scrapes of her skin. Parasites can still see him. He’s reading - goddamn parasites don’t care for reading, it's a little blurry - random personnel reports. 

Something pricks her and she flinches. The nurse gasps, jolts back, and Ocelot looks up. 

“Something wrong?”

“She just -”

Ah. Right. She concentrates. Pulls her arm back together. Ocelot clucks his tongue and goes back to his reading. She’d flush if she could. Fucking parasites. Little bugs think they can do what they want sometimes. She forces her arm rigid. Brings back the ones hovering around Ocelot to rejoin her hair. 

When that’s all done they throw her in the brig, all right. They roll back the panels to expose the grate so she can get sunshine. Give her all the water she wants. It’s much better digs than drying out in the desert squirting a canteen on herself and the bars a goddamn joke. So they're going to play it nice, too.

She's already decided that she isn't going to talk. She might be the bad guy in the Sunday morning cartoons, but she isn’t about this doomsday plan. The value of a dollar tends to drop dramatically if there’s no one around to take it. Sign language, she'd thought. Codes. Typing. Anything. Yeah, that's shot. Those kid gloves could come off in a moment. If Ocelot's partner of the last goddamn decade doesn’t know the Boss is a fake, she kind of doubts she can convince him to let her in.

What the fuck would she get from joining Diamond Dogs anyways? She cannot eat. She cannot drink. Get high. Feel, even, except what the parasites let her. Water? Better than an orgasm. 

She can turn invisible at least. But she can't even do that because they've posted a guard with her. Just one that she could take down easy. She gets it. If she's a good girl, they'll be good back. Just long enough till she reveals her master plan - if only she had one.

The point being, she's bored out of her skull. Drifting her fingertips and eyelids around the base gets old fast and reveals shit all that can help her. Miller squalls and snipes constantly, Ocelot keeps trying to mess with her - eyeing her up in the shower like he isn’t a born and bred cocksucker, please, and then when they think she isn't looking parasites see them wandering around the medical platform to swipe drugs. The first time the supposed Boss comes to visit her Ocelot lingers around after and she spends the next thirty-two hours - parasite time moves slow or fast or something, okay - paranoid that he knows that she knows. Parasites drift so far after him she thinks she won't be able to bring them back but she gets far enough to see him shoot up. Not suspicious at all.

For all that she thought she could outspy the spy, her range is a little limited if she wants that particular piece of skin or kidney or whatever back.

The one interesting part of her new life so far? That body double keeps coming down to visit her.

He's scared at first. He doesn't show up to her weekly trips to R&D to let them scrape her fake parasite skin and draw her fake parasite blood and occasionally examine the 70% of her body that's still human, but he shows up with his big dog to stare at her sometimes.

It's the most awkward thing ever. She can stretch languidly and flash her tits and he looks confused. She can smoke out and try to mess with him and he just tilts his head. When she reaches between the bars to pet his dog he orders DD away only to come back with a radio and a few dinky little cassettes. In case she gets bored. That's actually pretty nice, because parasites do shut up when they hear music and she can only hum off-key so much, but she plays it cool. By the time he brings her Kids in America he's let her pet his dog. 

Seriously, who is this guy. And how the hell does the Diamond Dog's adorable coma-survivor mascot survive in the field - no, she knows, he could have killed her. Right. But he didn't, so, what gives. For all that Miller and Ocelot might push him around, she's wondering if focusing on the wild card might be her best bet here. 

No, she doesn't have a fucking plan. But she can try to just. Do something.

The next thing Ocelot does is start oiling her guns and ask how'd she'd like some target practice. Now that's a game she can play. Turns out, the mascot could use a support sniper in the field. Sometimes a dog just doesn't cut it and of course they can just go ahead and trust her, can't they? Ocelot trusts her with his Boss's life while Miller screeches so bad she starts to wonder if it is all indeed just a bad-cop act because no grown ass man could ever reach that pitch. Whatever. She'll sneak out the window if the poor guy wants to live it up.

And then Miller smacks her with his crutch on the helipad and she realizes the bastard can _see_ her.


	2. VEGETATE

For all that Miller bitches about it he can’t exactly stop her from leaving with the double, and she can’t exactly ask the double “hey, remember when my old coworkers raped your husband cause I think he caught something," so all in all it’s an awkward flight. Pequod only makes it worse when he starts blasting the Bowie.

But still, shit. Miller’s seen her following him around base. Following Ocelot. Slipping into the showers - what, free water and a free show, don't look at her. Checking out the armory, trying to sneak around the labs to see what they do with her samples. If Miller had a lick of sense he'd be putting her on pest control duty.

Well, if he knows, Ocelot knows. And they’re still letting her go out with their Boss - that one or both of them may or may not actually give a shit about and aw hell what does she know about what's going on in their heads. For all their bickering, they had nine years of playing the greased pig while XOF fell flat on their face.

She thinks about it the entire helo flight and comes to the conclusion of well, screw her sideways. Goddammit, this could have been so simple. She used to joke that she’d never make it to thirty - or no, that might have been one of her old instructors who said it, or her roommates in the barracks when she was a Bonneville brat.

Technically she didn’t. Unless her birthday's already passed? Either way, her new life is already over.

She twitches and drifts around the goat photos before she realizes the body double is trying to talk to her. Something about - MSF?

Whoa, no. She was a baby then. Still thought she’d be a SEAL someday. She doesn’t even need to shake her head, he gets it.

“Hm. Must have one of those faces, then.” He shrugs.

Ah. Well, that makes sense. Just waking up from a coma, drugs still floating in his system. Awfully convenient for both her and the real Big Boss if he doesn't remember the hospital.

He stares at his red knuckles, human hand rubbing circles on his knees. Mutters something to himself he dismisses with a huff. “Guessing Ocelot gave you the rundown, huh. You know what to do?” That’s not a happy I-like-to-pet-my-dog-and-pick-flowers smile.

Yeah? She guesses she knows what to do. A two-man plus chopper squad is smaller than what she’s used to but then again, she doesn’t need a spotter.

“Watch out,” he says wryly. “I might just go ahead and hallucinate you’re the enemy.”

He doesn’t say another word to her until Afghanistan. Just tells Pequod to turn up the music - some kind of slow-jams that make the parasites want to go right to sleep.

Doesn’t trust his own mind, huh? She might relate a little bit to that. It’s just those damn bugs. The willing research subject role isn’t entirely act. If she proves herself cooperative there might be something in it for her in the end.

Miller chirps through the radio before they touch down in a final and unnecessary briefing. So some of their mujaheddin buddies have been captured by the Reds, and the body double’s supposed to break into a supply outpost to get them back. Right, couldn’t Ocelot have just fudged a prisoner transfer? 

But spies don’t run on human logic, no, they shatter logic and turn those shards to shanks and _stab you_ with it. So here's her little test. Let’s see if she runs away, or kills the boss - but haha, she’s got nothing but tranq rounds. Some display of trust there.

It’s a relief to get out of the helicopter and stand in the bright desert sun, at least. Sometimes it’s like the parasites flex her muscles for her, those weird tingles she gets running up and down her arms. It takes her a moment to realize the body double is signalling to her. Stand down. A V to his eyes, to the hilltop - yeah, she gets it. She’s not deaf.

But there’s no one there. Nothing but a few goats on the crest of a hilltop across the dried riverbed, a scorpion thirty yards to their three o’clock, an army of ants marching beneath their feet, a - parasites are just stoked to be out in the real world, that's all. She starts humming to them again while she gets in position until her whole body thrums and she's good to go, uh, shoot that empty hilltop.

Fire at what now?

Sure, she can sure load some tranq rounds into a herd of goats at 800 yards. He took her all the way out here just for target practice, though?

Except apparently not, because the next thing this guy does is scramble down their hill and run across the dried up riverbed to strap Fulton balloons to each and every goat. Surely Diamond Dogs isn’t that hard up for food that they’ve resorted to sending the boss out on hunting trips. 

“We get a bonus for it,” is all he says.

A bonus?

“Miller’s got us a contract with an environmental NGO. Maybe the goats aren’t endangered, but they’ll pay us anyways.”

Well, that sounds fun. She guesses. Get a couple nice fat sheep and -

"Ah, I'm sure he'd like to eat them. But they keep a headcount. And I -" he shrugs. Yeah, she figured he was a softie.

So, animal rescue endeavors. What else does Diamond Dogs have up their sleeves?

The job itself goes simple enough. She gets why he might have wanted an all-seeing sniper. The Yakho Oboo outpost is a fort, guard towers bristling with rifles, but there’s plenty of little spots she can reach no other human might be able to. That little hillcrest is a bad spot for him, though, she’d try to tell him. Not much cover, and there’s clearly a guard patrol that comes up around here. But hey, there’s a few goats, and some opium poppies he can pick. For morphine. Sure.

They wait for night. He smokes, she basks like the lizards dotting the sandstone cliffs. The parasites are happy, and some of them would cover those lizards if she’d let them but she kind of needs that hand.

She almost misses it when he goes in.

Right. Fuck. Okay, okay. She’s in position, she’s ready. She sees him crawl into a guard tower and choke out some guy. Parasites watch him drizzle his canteen all over the radio let it sizzle. Parasites follow him into the drains. Parasites hover around every guard. The prisoner doesn’t recognize him, but knows the Diamond Dogs insignia. She doesn’t need to do shit and once he’s strapped balloons to all the prisoners she's bored as hell and following a trail of army ants but -

“Fire at will.”

That’s right. She’s got tranq rounds. All right, then. Two men at the northeast tower. He’s crouching the behind crates. She nabs the one while he dives for the other. But there’s a third, and he’s pulling out his radio -

All communications already down. Nice one. The nearest guardpost is about a twenty minute drive. Hour extra if you count the EMS mine he’d seemingly dropped at random on the way here. So they’ve got a base full of sleeping beauties, what’s the plan?

The plan is to make off with their entire arsenal, no, not even. Rob the bastards blind.

She coagulates to follow him through the base, phasing through doors he kicks open. Medical supplies. Transistors. The entire goddamn armory. There's even some old whaling ship on standby to take every single vehicle on base. The body double just throws crates at her and that’s right, she’s got those Fulton kits in her loadout too. Didn’t know what the hell she was supposed to do with them, but the body double just acts like she knows exactly what to do. Can this balloon even take a crate of AKS-74s? Yes, it can. Fulton recovery’s come a long way.

So Diamond Dogs - or more like Miller - is still kicking out those scrappy little arms deals. Back in Rhodesia he was selling off bits and pieces of his boyfriend's dirty old Kalashnikovs to ZANU-PF. Slipped the net just in time and left her in an empty Quonset wondering how the hell he'd pulled that one off.

Her back is breaking by the time they’re through. There’s distant headlights on the desert road. But they’re already up the path, back to the hill where he missed an opium poppy or two, and making a break for the waiting jeep, and then he’s blasting _I’m Every Woman_ while she hovers in the backseat ready to take a shot at any light sleepers coming after them.

And when she does he straight up Fultons them, too. The mujaheddin were ready to join up the moment they saw the Diamond Dogs armband. The combat team is pretty much all mujaheddin, but what, are they gonna deploy the Reds back against their own guys? Send them to outer ops? Give them stay-at-home jobs? She wouldn't be surprised if they're throwing in visas to the first world along with the mujaheddin and former Derg prisoners and Somalian guerrillas, but the Reds would shoot him on sight.

“Don't worry about it,” he says, turning down his still-blasting Walkman. "Ocelot handles the Red Army recruits.”

Yeah, she's sure he does. So they just thrashed an entire Soviet outpost and it’s going to cost the USSR a hell of a lot to replace that - look, those ridiculous Fultons are clearly some kind of Cipher project, she isn’t that dumb. But she doesn’t know how to ask about the major fast one Ocelot’s pulling on the motherland.

Ocelot - uh. Fingerguns and cat ears? She points at the radio where he’s been encouraging their grand theft.

“Wasn’t he your target for nine years?”

Ah, more like three? Miller was one of her first assignments five years ago, and it took a minute to put the two together and realize Target Two had been shadowing every move he made.

“You know, then. All this -” he makes a circling motion - “is his other AO.”

Oh, word?

"Known him for twenty years." It's too dark to tell, but he looks almost wistful about it.

No shit the literal false flag has an open spy walking around. Talk about psyops. As for what Ocelot’s getting out of weakening the Soviet Union, he's been a triple agent since her old boss was trailing him in the sixties. And here she thought she’d gone rogue.

See? She was right. She was saying this just last year to her old handler whathisname when Miller slipped her noose yet again and he was like blah blah all my intel and she was all if your precious intel doesn’t eat my ass you ain’t eating my pussy and he was like wahh i wish you'd just shut up sometimes and she was like then make me and -

Heh. Yeah. Back when she was human.

The revelation doesn’t bother her none. The thing about names and borders and organizations and politics too, is just this.

There will always be a need for boots on the ground.

Look, she’s been a dog since she joined the JROTC back in grade school. Angst and anarcho-capitalism might be fun for the real Big Boss, but has he ever considered just getting his and getting by? At some point, you realize it’s all about staying alive and the bottom line and maybe getting some dick to ride.

Right. And then parasites come and fuck your shit up and you trip right on down into Wonderland. Only the LSD is real and the rabbit and the caterpillar are banging and okay she never read that book it was dumb.

Anyways. More goats. Sandstorms that wipe her out until the double dribbles his canteen on her. Miller calls with word of a captured Diamond Dog intel member, and hey we’ll get a bonus if we take out this AV unit along the way. This time he doesn't fuck around - slits a throat and pops another while she helplessly tranqs the other two, but holy shit yes go right ahead and Fulton the BMP-2, they can sell that one off. Ocelot says it's okay to leave a body or two behind every so often, and of course they'll just do whatever Ocelot says.

Those two guys she tranqed? They'll have one hell of a story when they wake up - and who knows, maybe the shame of it all will send them fleeing the 40th army to go join up with one of the PMCs in the area. She could really laugh.

No, she didn't take him for some peacenik. He kills the way he does everything else. Just going through the motions.

The parasites might only shut up at night, but tearing around watching this gentle maniac kick ass and pick flowers is the most fun she’s had, gosh, since she woke up.

On the sixth day she realizes she isn’t the only monster out here.

So the guy is picking flowers and talking to Ocelot about hedgehogs while she lays under a waterfall and hums to her parasites. Next thing a shot rings out and he’s calling for his dog.

Shit.

It’s her old coworkers. The ones she could never decide if she was creeped out by or jealous of. Her prototypes.

Five of them. One sniper on that tall wooded cliff overlooking their waterfall valley. Great job, they’re sitting fucking ducks and the double is holding his flowers with a blank face. Get to fucking cover, Christ. She snatches some of her real rounds while he's dithering. Good call on bringing a backup because shit's about to get real.

Alright alright. She can do this. Hah, she’s faster than them. Eight o’clock - 1000 yards - hell, parasites can guide her shot. Bang, bitch. Take that one back to your boss, she has officially defected. Holy shit the parasites know exactly where everything is - nice try, but the Skulls didn't die first and parasites can tell that's a human body - and it's like she's magic or something and times like this it's best to let the parasites take over and damn, take that, yeah, she's a billion eyes in a hundred places and only one rifle but she doesn't even need that to explode in their faces or eat _their_ parasites, who's the monster now -

She doesn’t even realize she’s humming until the double’s breathing slows and he finally starts fighting back. No, he’s not a bad shot. She couldn’t go easy on him in the ruins. He watches her six even if she doesn't need him to. She’s got his back.

The Skull unit could use an upgrade. Bet they wish they had these next-gen parasites.

Her latest partner requires _this_ level of friendship before they can high-five, but he throws her a nod. There’s a terse “Nice work” from Miller in her ear and a smug “Told you” from Ocelot. Aw, no biggie.

Do they really need to Fulton all of them? Dammit, let one escape to tell the tale. Then again, Skull Face already knows she's crossed over. Been long enough. The boss just says something about biotech companies.

Oh, word? Of course. Has she not figured it out yet? Miller doesn't give a shit about anything but the bottom line.

The double's kind of tired after that encounter, and they've been out here long enough. No more time for sticking sandy thumbs up sandy asses. They hit up Pequod to pick them up on the dunes and then it's time to go back to fucking Diamond Dogs to fucking Miller and Ocelot again.

Haha, yeah, that was totally a euphemism, she just realized it -

She’s been talking to herself too much.

For all that she just saved his Boss’s life Miller is still screeching about how Ocelot let “Snake” go out with a spy at the helipad. Please. She phases just for drama of it. So what if he can see her. What the hell is he gonna do? Keep selling her scrapings off to the highest bidder? A thank you would be nice.

His parasites are probably all dead anyways. Trapped behind his glasses and choking on his BO. Really calling the kettle black there, bitch. She goes to back to her _room_ anyways and doesn’t turn down the Hall & Oates when he comes clanking down at dusk.

Fuck does he want? She’s stripped off her bikini and he clearly is sweating about it so she sends more parasites to her tits. Let’s see if he can spit while popping a chub.

All he does is smirk and lower his glasses.

White, flat, almost luminous eyes turn black and drip down his face.

“You saved his life. I’ll give you that.”

Yeah, she can out-black-goo him too.

“But while you go ahead and sucker them all into your diseased cunt -”

That's rich, coming from the legendary cum-dumpster himself.

“- I’ll be watching you.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Alright. Her parasites buzz, his drip, and that’s their stalemate.

 

  

 

You’d think Miller would take the stick out of his ass when her mission performance is analyzed and deemed A and B the C of D. No, not even after a new totally-a-Cipher-plant washes up on the helipad. The greasy robotfucker himself defects - minus the clearly closeted dyke wife. It’s a big secret, but she would recognize that nerd reek anywhere. Not that he even recognizes her, ghosting around Room 101. They don’t shut off the air vents for him.

What’s Miller gonna do about it? He knows she knows damn well who Emmerich is. Hey, she’s just worried, she doesn’t want a spy on base any more than he does, right? Besides, who’s she going to tell. For all that he screeches at her when she tries to drift around the base, he doesn’t say shit to her this time.

Miller breaks Huey’s leg back and Ocelot finally looks like he's paying attention and then

_Cherry blossoms cherry blossoms as far as the eye can see something something tanuki ballsacks_

It's in a language she barely knows and no one can hear it but the goddamn parasites.

Fine, whatever, she fucking hates sitting under these red lights anyways.

No bonding over shared parasites then. Miller just uses it to ruin her fun while Ocelot shrugs and orders more time with R&D and medical. At least the staff there is used to her by now, if lacking in bedside manner. Even if they're just selling them off, there's definitely something happening on the other side of that airlock. If Miller finds out how to cure his eyes she's getting in on it come hell or high water. For all that being a monster is fun and all...

Nah, it's probably nothing. But sometimes - sometimes she just kind of - yeah, they're the only thing keeping her alive. What is she, an idiot?

The Boss takes his dog out for the next few missions, but he comes down to see her more. Brings her new tapes. Prince and the Revolution, Joy Division, branching out a bit. He never says much. Works for her. Who the hell else is she gonna not talk to? The Diamond Dogs will alternately catcall or curse like they aren’t pissing their pants at the sight of her. Miller and Ocelot - haha, as if.

Ocelot's games are at least more fun than Miller's nasty half-dead parasites slinking after her. Aw, how about some target practice with the nice old cowboy? Sure, all right. He takes her down to the kill house, lets her fire something with a kick. Gives her thirty seconds for sixty targets like she's an amateur. Damn but she really is cool. It used to take forever to line up a shot - of course it did, she was a professional - but now she's whipping out headshots like a more metal angel of death and Ocelot smiles and taps at his iDroid. No, she doesn't want to see any of her data. Just a big dumb plant who's good at shootbangs.

He doesn't talk much either, but his eyes are brighter when he's watching her storm around the kill house. And parasites see him after when she's supposedly all wore out and back in her cell.

Withdrawal's always a bitch, but soon enough he's blinking like normal. The springy pounce on the catwalks of the kill house relax into an easy stride, and then it's aw shucks Miller the Boss needs her battle-ready, it'd be stupid to let a specimen like that waste away, isn't he all about asset management anyways?

Then he goes and gives DD a bath or something. Ocelot's pretty boring to spy on.

All those weaponized addictions and delusional cripples aside. Here's the other guy they've already played into oblivion.

Just hanging out, no big deal. Fiddling with his iDroid. Cleaning his weapons, even hers. Kind of a quiet guy himself, huh? He seems to hang around medical a lot, because he's always dropping in. For a moment, for a few hours. Sometimes he brings a hedgehog or a weird lizard instead of his dog and they really let him get away with having too many pets. DD learns to like her, and while the one that covers would love to cover him too it’s nice to just touch another living thing for once.

There's this one time when he pulls out some kind of big-eared gerbil from under his scarf and holds it out to her between the bars and she pets it. Lets it crawl on her hands. It's nosing and sniffing and trying to get away until she has to make a treadmill with her hands, but dammit, the guy looks happy.

He can never stay too long but she gets it. Nagging wives, whiny soldiers, the whole Big Boss jig. He needs to get away every once in a while. It’s all right. She’s a fake human too. And that new Prince album is sick.

Oh, the disassociation is still happening. But he's oddly shy about taking her out and she guesses DD is good enough. It's just when he comes stumbling down the stairs sometimes hyperventilating and like, what's she gonna do? Hum to him? He likes that, at least.

After a month or so of that, though, either he gives in or Ocelot presses him enough. She gets to go out to Africa with his horse to destroy some oil facility in a surprisingly humanitarian mission. He catches a bunch of zebras and the parasites thrive in the humid jungle air. She watches his back until the C4 goes off and then takes potshots at the guys riding Walker Gears - huh. Wasn't that a Huey project? Useless pieces of shit, anyways, she's got a clear shot at their backs.

It's an easy job. She's gliding through the jungle, checking out some cool frogs, while he plods on his horse with his head tilted back to the splotchy sunlight. Then he blinks. Looks west, where they passed by some kind of camp.

"I forgot something," is all he says.

What the hell. There's so many other PMCs out here - and those guys are easy to recruit, all they need is a pay-raise. So time for another joyride? Nope, no recruits this time.

Parasites follow him inside a glorified sewer ditch and immediately want to book it. Rotting shit and piss mixed with banana peels, nope. But there's something else, and the boss kind of just... stops. Already crouching, he makes himself even lower and holds out two raised palms.

Four of them. Two girls. Two boys. Can't be any older than twelve. Fresh recruits, obviously. _Very_ fresh. Red welts around their wrists.

He puts two on his horse. Carries one over his shoulders. The other can walk, he doesn't ask her to help or anything. Pequod actually touches down in the LZ this time. The kids follow without a word and the girls don't want to sit down, but they're going to have to deal with it before they can take off.

Kind of creepy how they stare. He should have brought his dog, DD would have been perfect for this kind of job.

She doesn't come along the next time he picks up even more war orphans from some mine the Diamond Dogs end up capturing. Miller's all like, child labor rocks, he started working when he was ten years old and look how he turned out, while Ocelot plays patient ESL tutor and the boss lets his dog to the talking. For all that they ought to call up UNICEF and have it done with, the kids don't go anywhere. As for what the body double wants with the daycare unit, she can only imagine while parasites linger. Makes him about as happy as his little zoo, though. Sometimes he actually does smile when he's alone. All soft and magnanimous, like he's everyone's dad and you could ask him anything...

Yep, there's his pissy pet cockwarmer. Watching her watch his precious "Snake." If she had a death wish she'd try blowing their minds and dodge that fallout, hah. But the way Ocelot looks at the boss and Miller both from behind, she has a feeling that's his bomb to drop. And then Big Boss himself will show up and they'll all have a four-way, right.

So that's pretty much it for a while. She very nearly starts to have a real life at Diamond Dogs, or at least some sort of routine. Miller and Ocelot snipe and smirk till kingdom come, but why bury her nose in their shit when one whiff is she needs? She's the one protecting their man in the field.

Yeah and then it all blows up in her face just because -

Hey, it wasn't _her_ fault.


	3. BLOOM

All right. So this is kind of -

Look, it’s no secret Big Boss was an attractive man. Even if he must’ve smelled like rotten meat and swamp-ass. But his body double’s breath smells like whatever weird herbs he vapes.

Wormwood. Salvia. Jimsonweed. That tall bunchy grass that grows by the streams in the AO. She was in the field with him when the parasites recognized the smell.

Anyways, she hasn’t gotten laid since she woke up. Excuse her if there was a little something more interesting happening to her body. It’s not like parasites give a shit whether she gets off, and sometimes she starts to feel hot and hungry before realizing she hasn’t even rubbed one out in weeks because she’s been too obsessed with stinking Diamond Dog turds. Besides, she has a guard on her all the time and there’s this species of beetle, yellow with two brown thumbprints on the carapace, that snuck on the chopper and they’ve started a colony two subfloors below her cell.

Seriously. Put her on pest control already, she’d be great at it.

Right, so she’s horny. And for once her guard isn’t one of Ocelot’s little red-beret twinks. Not even that hot, but he might be hiding a little something worth checking out under there. Parasites confirm a good, uh, four inches. Hey, any drop of water in the desert.

Plus he’s been looking at her like she’s particularly tasty and maybe she throws him a wink and hey, what’s Miller gonna do besides cry and jerk it?

Oh hell yes he’s down for it.

She phases through the bars before he’s even halfway down the steps. Straddles him right there. Yeah, he likes it rough. Likes her tongue shoved down his throat so she can taste his FUCKING -

Same species. Different strain. Fully activated and they want to _breed_. She knows its Kikongo the same way she understood Miller’s Japanese folk songs.

So Skull Face went with her own suggested infiltration plan. How many Kikongo speakers are here already? She snatches his combat knife, they’re doing this right here, no unholy parasite babies -

“Goddamn crazy bitch!”

He can make it up the stairs but parasites follow him. Her body catches up and hurls itself at him and now she’s got him pinned.

Right in front of a whole damn party taking a smoke break. And guess who’s right around the corner, motherfucking Ocelot, just happened to be passing by.

Whatever the hell he sticks her with, it’s still swimming in her system when she comes to in that dim red room.

Okay. She fucked up. Playtime’s over. The bonds are still a joke, but this time the parasites aren’t playing nice. Right, she’s been sitting in this room without proper sunlight for who knows how long, and she can tell right away that the vents have been sealed.

Which means Miller and Ocelot have to be suffering too.

They’re here, but right now they’re just wavering phantoms that refuse to focus. God. That smell - they’re all sweating, but there’s something else sickly and sweet festering under her skin.

Ugh. What. What is Ocelot saying.

“-wasting your time,” Miller snaps. He’s deep in the shadows, back against the wall.

“She’s waking up.” Ocelot’s right in front of her. Straddling a chair turned backwards, one gloved hand under his chin and an iDroid in his hand. “Quiet. Can you hear me?”

Yes. She nods. The big dumb plant knows that much, at least.

“Seems you’ve been getting into trouble lately, hmm?”

Ugh.

“Rough Badger’s still in hospital. He’ll live. We hope. See, we found something interesting in his exam. Might look familiar to you.”

There’s… something projecting from the iDroid? Images. Medical reports. How the hell is she supposed to focus on -

Oh boy. Yeah. That’s her future right there, if she ever talks.

Fuck her, it’s been spreading fast. She doesn’t want to look at the swollen chests. The pulsating lungs. She’s not letting that happen to her.

Ugh, she feels nauseous. The parasites feel as swollen and sickly as the infected Diamond Dogs look. She gets it. Shit has hit the fan, and of course the parasite knows something about parasites. Come on, guys, the interrogation stage play isn’t necessary.

Christ, how did it spread so fast? How many Diamond Dogs have been learning each other’s languages? What kind of patois have crept up among different platforms? Adjusting to English can’t have been easy for some of them.

Understatement of the decade, this is bad. Room 101 might be soundproofed but... yeah. Parasites sure as fuck can _hear_ it there's so many of them. She doesn’t need to tell them how bad it is, but she can tell them this much.

Not like she can even focus when her head is swimming like this and her belly is burning and she distinctly realizes she’s still horny, maybe meeting more parasites made hers all randy or something. Just let her try to type while that dim red light chokes her to death.

Ocelot doesn’t let her hold the iDroid, only opens some kind of on-screen keyboard.

Kikongo.

How the fuck do they think she knows. Parasites.

Ew, it reeks like Miller’s parasites in here. This red light -

Wait a goddamn second, she’s seen this before. One of her arms was hanging out with the other plants on support. Found the not-so-secret pot garden. They had these lights over the short, stubby plants that had the biggest buds.

Holy shit, she’s a flower. That heady feeling? The one that covers is in full bloom and stinking up the joint with hormones. So the one that listens might reproduce sexually, but this one really is a freaking plant. She’s only so exhausted because she’s dehydrated, but isn’t the human body like eighty percent water or something?

Fine, they can chew on whatever’s left of her. Just let her focus.

Of course she has it. Jesus. Put two and two together already.

Who made it - the old man, she doesn’t know, he was at the Lufwa house when she woke up there. Who knows if he’s still there.

See, Miller? She’s not his fucking spy. See, Ocelot? She’s turned and she’s loyal. Now here’s their horticulture lesson of the day: plants convert their energy to _reproduction_ under red light. The big dumb plant’s still got it. Welcome to Botany 101, motherfuckers -

At least they don’t laugh when she phases out of her bonds and splatters, but Ocelot's got that catty cunt smirk. Miller just snorts and opens the door to the airlock. Turns the air back on before he leaves, at least, and finally she can breathe. The hormones calm down once they’ve got some proper airflow, and she gets her water. Real lights turn on and she gasps. The blooming parasites flex and stretch.

Ocelot taps his chin thoughtfully, watching her. “Could coming into close contact with activated parasites have altered your dormant strain?”

How would she know?

“I think it’s best if we take a closer look.”

Off to medbay, then.

Even as they prod and scrape at her the choppers keep departing with more of the infected.

The lady doc says she's fine. Really? They’re the same damn species. Shouldn’t she be quarantined, at least?

Nope, Ocelot confirms she's fine. After all, these guys were talking rampant Kikongo for weeks. She hasn’t said a word.

It hits her on the flight back to base with Ocelot that she just kind of saved all of their asses.

“Hmm?” He’s got this slow blink like a cat waking up from a nap. Haha, he’s a cat. Best joke on base. Humor isn’t exactly nuanced here. “Don’t worry. Once we've got every speaker in  quarantine, there’ll be no risk of transmission. Hell, once we find a cure it may even work for you.”

No shit?

There might have been an idea she’d had in the ruins. Something like, join the Diamond Dogs, they’re rich, their guys have the latest tech, their R&D team is killing it. Who knows.

And for all that Ocelot is, she really did just save them all. Why would he try to mess with her, once she’s turned? She’s given him zero reason to doubt her, and he can keep his big secrets about Big Boss.

The boss is all business on the trip to get Code Talker. No time for animals or flowers or hanging out in that delicious-looking waterfall. Last-year’s models show up again, too, like she even has the time to mess with them.

She's perched on the cliffs around the mansion, watching a snoopy guard that’s this close to looking through the wrong window through her scope when something goes wrong.

Are all the guys here infected too?

She was right about this language transmission shit. Her old boss is completely insane. She lowers her scope. Keeps her parasites from getting too close to - whatever the hell that is. When her boss and her maker escape she drifts after them, but she can’t get the image out of her head. Parasites can’t look away from the lifeless men shuffling through the jungle.

Code Talker’s ready and willing to turn. He knows firsthand how bad this could get. And they’re so close to making it back when the fucking Skulls come after them again. She’s never seen Pequod look so scared.

Fuck this to shreds, they're kind of busy here. The boss soaks in his own blood, and she’s the storm that surrounds him.

They make it out alive. A backup chopper arrives and she coagulates beside him. He blinks like he’s just realized she’s there. Holds up two red fingers and smiles.

Yeah, buddy. They did it. Now let's go save Diamond Dogs and all.

He’s pensive on the way back, and she’s a little distracted by the heavy mist of Code Talker’s parasites, but his bloody thigh is pressed to hers. The parasites can taste him, sucking through his fatigues, and she wonders if he can feel her.

Yeah, he can. He makes that low noise in this throat that means he wants to talk. When she turns to him he presses his flesh hand to his throat.

She nods.

Whoa. 

What if she could talk again?

Not that she and the boss aren't already killing it on the silent conversations. She gets it, that steady eye. The cure comes first, but after that, it's time to take a hit out on her old boss.

Still. Two battles with the Skulls fucked up what’s left of her enough that she’s benched for a while. You can’t put stitches in goop, but she’ll lay in a hospital bed if it makes them feel better. Considering she’s the latest goddamn hero of Diamond Dogs after all.

It’s not that she needs sleep, but at night the parasites sure like to. Besides, when she wakes up, she'll have her voice back.

When she wakes up those screeching  parasites have gone silent. It worked already? She phases from her room to discovers it's still night. How long was she asleep?

The one lady doc is still awake in her office on the ground floor, squinting at her blocky computer. Green Frog or something, the one who stocked those unnecessary pads in the brig. She jumps a little, but she’s used to the parasites by now.

“Quiet? I don’t have you down for tonight. Is something… let me check my chart, hold on.”

Nope, not a routine visit. She taps her throat.

“Ah. That.”

Well? Did they find a cure?

“Umm. See, since it’s a different strain and yours aren’t activated, they weren’t sure if...” Frog blinks. Tucks her short spiky hair behind her ear and chews on her lip a little. “Yeah, you know what? Let’s give it a shot.”

Well, what the hell are they waiting for?

Tests firsts, okay. Frog injects her with some kind of dye. Parasites hate getting scanned. It takes way too damn long. She glitches and droops around the waiting room until Frog comes back and accidentally recoagulates on the ceiling before dropping. Yeah, show her. She’s turned, Ocelot and Miller can let her see her own damn medical records.

It’s obvious the moment she sees the scan. The glowing white, the darkened blue. She doesn’t need Frog’s long winded explanation. It’s spread and it’s still growing. Yes, the one that listens is there, but the one that covers is…

“Quiet?”

What, she’s not fucking blind, she can see it.

“It’s your choice to make in the end. But these are the risks. I can’t guarantee anything.”

No. This isn’t right. Maybe the blue dye spread too much. Maybe Frog doesn’t know what the fuck she’s doing.

“Quiet...”

Hah. Fuck.

“I’m sorry.”

Sorry for what? 

Frog has touched her plenty of times. She isn’t trying any shit and that’s the only, only fucking reason she lives to tell the tale of watching a human being spill in a puddle of goop. Ooze on the floor. Through the sink drains and down the pipes and out into the ocean.

Augh, gross, saltwater, what was she thinking.

She recoagulates on some walkway between decks, spitting.

Does it really matter? Losing those organs only means she has less weak points to hit. Means she won’t have to focus on keeping that bit of vertebrae or esophagus or - she only knows as much anatomy as she needs to kill. Yeah, twenty two ways with her bare hands and even then a blood choke is slower than letting the one that covers just go ahead and cover that brain.

She’s got her brain, though. It doesn’t get to cover her brain. But she doesn’t have -

She needs to talk to that old asshole Code Talker. Parasites find him first waiting for the sunrise on the command platform.

Her maker’s parasites are even more ancient than he is. They descend in a fine, heavy mist, saturating him completely. His roots grow deep, and his leaves eclipse the sun.

Yeah no shit he’s creepy.

They don’t want to coagulate in front of him, but she forces herself. Two hands. A face. Perfect fucking tits. God, it’s a bitch to use her voice. How the hell does she know Navajo? Do all his precious little bugs know it? She can barely hear her voice.

He made her, right? Augh, she’s bubbling ooze. This isn’t working. Fuck his parasites, their will is older and bigger and she is the creation he is the maker he is her maker he is -

“I laid your foundations. Skull Face constructed over them. I recommended we spend more time seeing how the two colonies would interact over time, but he had no patience for the rhythms of nature.”

Yeah, she’s been living on plant time too. She doesn’t know how to swear in Navajo, shit. So it's growing. Like, fast. Is she dying? Again?

Code Talker has white, milky eyes like Miller. The older strain of the one that covers. “A fungus feeds on a dead tree trunk and the forest is reborn. You, too, have been reborn.”

Meaning?

No answers. No real goddamn answers. Something about blah blah the stick and the rope and man versus nature and the big bang and seriously, what the hell was with everyone in XOF going on and on forever.

She doesn’t fucking need his answers. Doesn’t need his scraping voice grating at her. He tells her to wait, tells her he can see she has questions, all up on his wise old man bullshit. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.

She doesn’t need a cure either. She’s gotten this far without talking anyways. Become a beautiful blooming monster, and just to shove it up the old fart’s ass she decides to give herself her own test.

Damn, but she's fast. Platform to platform, soaring over the creaky jeeps and under and below the clumsy choppers. Through floors and ceilings, down pipes and up vents. The one that covers always wants to cover, and her left foot swallows a rat completely and watches the bones sink into an oil spill of black, black goo.

Miller's got to know something at least.

His parasites are quiet tonight. He’s in the mess kitchen on support, cooking all alone under a single light. All of his layers have been stripped off like some big stinky onion, and he can’t tie an apron one-handed. He doesn’t even look at her when she comes spilling out from under an industrial-sized oven.

“That’s a health code violation, you know.”

Sure. Shouldn’t he be washing his hands or something? Screeching and waving his cane at her? There’s gin in his coffee cup.

“What, are you hungry?”

Huh. Finally some goddamn appreciation for once. She did just save his entire precious army, but no, she won’t cover dead ground up meat. Not much there for the one that covers. 

Hmm. Seems tasty, though. Obviously it likes to eat flesh. Now there's an idea.

“Still can’t talk? Thought they cured -” and he blinks. Shakes his head.

Beneath the sunglasses, his parasites fester. Her hand reforms around the frame and she tears them off. He splutters, but he can’t do shit against her cloud.

“Christ, do you even know what you - no, this isn’t even the same species as that.”

The one that covers is not the one that listens, no shit.

“Psycho fucking - give those back!“

What. These sunglasses? Surely not these sunglasses. She floats above the stove while the oven hood sucks on her and he wobbles on his peg leg. Slams his one hand back on the steel counter right before he falls over or burns himself.

“What? I figured it out when I saw you going full flower in Room 101. Keeps them quiet. Maybe you could finally learn something and put on some goddamn clothes for once. How’d you think Code Talker does it?”

How does she think Code Talker does what?

Code Talker’s a fucking doctor and Miller’s an accountant who spends half his workday bent over his desk by the real soldiers. They’re nothing like her, they will never be anything like her. She gives him back his precious sunglasses before his eyes get enough of the white fluorescents installed in the kitchen to really grow. Drops back to the floor to remind herself what her teeth look like. She forgot her bikini and boots, but who cares. Let Miller pop another chub.

Fuck his burger and fuck his health standards. There’s a rat right here in the kitchen. She brings it across the floor in a surge of black and makes him watch. The one that covers devours it faster than she ever let it devour her lungs.

He’s just laughing at her. “Hah, so there’s a future for you yet. How does pest control sound? You’re good enough at swatting those Skulls, aren’t you?”

Pest control? Yeah, why not. She’s pretty damn hungry for the first time since she woke up.

“Almost made me burn my damn burger.”

She slides on the counter and watches him. His face gets redder the more he drinks and stands over a hot stove. Cheese lands on the burger, a few pieces of gin-soaked ice from his mug, and then he plops a pan over the mess. Says something about how this is how you really make a good juicy cheeseburger, not that she would ever understand, hah, because she’s just a big dumb plant.

Did she know that Ocelot can’t cook to save his life? There, now she knows something he doesn’t.

Maybe she made a mistake lumping the two of them together all the time. And he's got to be telling the truth - he wasn't there during her early sessions in Room 101.

It was only Ocelot at first. Everything was recorded, there’s tapes somewhere in the double’s ACC, even in Miller’s office. Language testing, seeing if she could read or write. Those bullshit cattle-prod sessions for details on XOF. Never longer than an hour, never real torture, but there's no possible way Ocelot would have known about her back then.

All the way back when the big dumb plant monster figured out something she definitely wasn't supposed to know. With nothing but that limp sleeve of a black T-shirt she can finally get a look at the lumpy scars of Miller's stump.

No, what the hell would Ocelot have known about the parasites? The red lights were on with Huey too, with everyone, they’re just red fucking lights so that Miller and Ocelot can keep up that basic intimidation aesthetic. She was never out for hours underneath them after all.

Shit happens.

“By the way, Snake’s going on a little trip tomorrow. Gonna go say hi to your old boss. Want to come along?”

Right. These are conversations she isn’t privy to, but parasites hear echoes. They found that giant robot Emmerich’s been building and it’s kind of a big deal. Something about nukes - look, she was an infiltrator and an assassin. Her handlers sent in the paper forms to the weapons development team and she got her guns. There was a whole speech about how one day, when Sally’s complete, yadda yadda take over the world, but she didn’t learn much about the doomsday device until she woke up as  one.

Hell yes she wants to come along. Give that fucker the old one-two and show him just how far she came without his stupid plan.

“You’d better watch his ass out there,” Miller says, stacking his burger on a paper plate. “Like you need me to tell you that.”

No, she doesn’t.

“He likes you, you know.”

Aw, hell. Don’t tell her it’s time for the jealous husband touch-him-and-die-bitch speech, but he just snorts and stares at her gooping on the floor. Yeah, let’s reform. Remind him that her body isn’t all broken and fat.

“You can fuck him if you want, heh. If you can keep that up long enough.” He waves a spatula dismissively at her seriously amazing tits. Flecks of grease spatter on them and a few spots of black appear where it lands.

Oh whatever. He hasn’t showered in weeks and there’s burger grease in his stubble but she’s the gross one now? Screw him. She hangs around the kitchen while Miller keeps drinking. Covers a few more rats in front of him, slow so he can watch them bubble and dissolve. Miller just spills gin on her and laughs.

 

 

 

Miller’s back to hissing at her in the morning, though. Coat turned up while he stalks around the helipad, parasites seething. Pissy old bitch. He gets on a chopper for once in his life along with Ocelot and for some reason Emmerich’s there too. There’s a bunch of chatter on the radio when it turns out of the boss’s dumb kids snuck on, the whiny little white kid.

Yeah, the mission's already a shitshow, but they’ve all got revenge boners ripping out their pants. Not like she particularly holds a grudge, being some unholy plant monster turned out to be pretty rad. Besides, Sally wasn't exactly a secret and Diamond Dogs is clearly raking it in with this one. No way Cipher wouldn't call up their pet cat - and dog? - to finally take that failed abortion down for good.

She lands outside OKB-0 with the boss. Ghosts around him when he goes in. Picks off a single spotter - Miller finally loosed the drawstrings enough to get her a decent silencer. Skull Face isn’t even surprised to see his very best friend Big Boss, and then the greatest thing in her entire goddamn life happens.

So they’re riding out to go see Sally. Ooh, let me show you my demon and maybe my shriveled dick too. Time for the worst episode of Schoolhouse Rock with the man who managed to make zombies boring.

And what does the body double do? Turn on his Walkman. No bullshit.

Skull Face just keeps going.

He turns up the volume.

Skull Face might raise his voice. Just a little bit.

And he turns that new Donna Burke jam higher.

Ho-lee shit, he's got even less patience than she ever did. Unstoppable force, meet this immovable object. It’s the biggest explosion of awkward she’s ever seen but she can’t even feel secondhand embarrassment because the boss just straight up, does not have a fuck to give. The drivers can hear it, the entire squad can hear it, it's literally blaring from his little speaker and Skull Face is still talking. She's laughing so hard her cloud splits and rolls across the sky in thick smears of black.

Aw, hell. You gotta love the boss.

Not much time to laugh, though, because shit gets pretty real after that. Yeah, the latest Soviet research rejects shows up - again, she wasn’t part of that crew until she became the next monster and she was deployed pretty quickly. Creepy ghost kid and the literal fireman. Somehow, Sally gets pissed.

What the hell is a sniper rifle going to do against that? Well, shit. She's got anti-material rounds, but does she have enough?

Shit, shit, shit. Okay. Parasites, help a girl out. There’s got to be weak spots in the armor. Hairline shots between joints, right? She’s surprised when her radio comes on and Ocelot’s in her ear. So that’s why they brought Emmerich along. Kind of hard to hear when Miller’s swearing up a storm and ordering airstrikes. At least the boss brought his missile launcher.

The sun is dawning by the time the big old robot’s down. Damn, can she just get a high-five already? Nope, Miller’s literally on the floor of the chopper, and the moment the boss sees him he’s all like what light from yonder sand dune breaks and tries to kiss him right there.

They even get their own little revenge wedding ceremony while she sits back in the friend-zone chopper. Ocelot’s right at the door, staring at their backs. Yeah, right there with you, pal. His thirst that all the red-beret twinks in the world couldn’t slake is the second best joke about Ocelot on base.

Ocelot even looks her way and throws her a wink before encouraging Emmerich to get on out there. Oh, sure, every girl wants a gay best friend to talk about boys with. Slumber party in the kill house?

The damn kid - Elijah or something? - tries to jump out of the chopper after him, but Ocelot pulls him back. Yeah, she almost forgot he was there. Speaking of love blooming on the battlefield, it looks like ghost ginger’s got a crush. Tries to sneak in while the boss and Miller say their vows and Huey drops the ring. The kid ain't shit to parasites, he might squirm when she grabs him by the scruff but whatever he does to human minds doesn’t work on plants.

So what, are they gonna expand the daycare unit? Seriously, someone’s got to call UNICEF soon.

Ocelot’s just like, oh, the boss has a thing for war orphans, and he’d spend the rest of his life in a lab, build a better future, blah blah.

She drops the kid so he can hiss at her in some forgotten bloc-speak. Yeah, not a word of English. No hard feelings, kid. Come on and defect to Diamond Dogs, the boss’s got a whole zoo of freaks. When Miller and the boss get back the kid goes full ghost anyways. Eli’s squirming like he popped a boner in math class.

Holy crap she hates kids. Parasites see Eli try to stealth pick his nose, like, augh. She'd rather sit next to Miller than that.

For all that he just bust a nut in his khakis Miller's pissy about that. He wrinkles his nose and stiffens, like, what, she didn't just save his husband's life in a totally fucking metal death match with a giant killer robot. It's like liquor's the only thing keeping him sane in which case, get a damn flask. Alky 101 right there.

Miller does start drinking at the party that night back on base. Diamond Dogs breaks out the kegs, support brings the weed, and the Command platform is jamming for once. Ocelot’s there, joint blazing and turning his pale eyes red. Even she gets a few nods, grins. A beer she drinks even if it does nothing for her. But Miller literally snatches a full bottle of the hard stuff and goes to hole up in his dark closet bedroom.

Meanwhile the boss is smiling and taking his slaps on the back. He drinks one beer, then another, and a third, and ah, shit. It's happening. Eyes wide and nervous. Glancing around wondering where the hell Miller is, stuttering over a word or two. Nobody's here? Nobody notices? Hey, Ocelot, your program's freezing.

Useless goddamn junkie, christ. Master of espionage her ass.

She catches the poor body double when he stumbles out of the floodlights to duck behind some shipping containers for a smoke. Snaps her fingers in his face. Look at her, okay? Does he know who he is? Course he doesn't. How many fingers - ten, good job. Hum along, can he hum along with her?

A weird idea hits her. Maybe if she like - feel that, parasites? Feel the sweat. His pulse is racing. Breath coming short. She knows what pressure points to strike, but what if she just kind of like, buzzes all nice and hums to him? That works. That's good. The boss is back now.

And now he wants to take her to the backstage VIP at the zoo. All righty, then.

Below the aviary deck he’s got this whole setup of shelves lined with terrariums. It’s incredibly expensive and incredibly cool, and the plan tonight is to clean the reptile tanks. Parasites soothe the snakes when she lifts them and places them in plastic tubs. He hums her tune while they work in the smell of ammonia and lizard shit. Chuckles when he sees a beetle crawl on her face.

She doesn't like to go all black lagoon around him. Couldn't tell you why. Might as well be a fake around the fake. For all that Miller might have said in the mess kitchen that night...

Ah, fuck. She doesn't know. The guy is just. Exactly who he is even after having entire damn identity stolen and his mind eaten and sometimes she wonders who he was before because there's these things he does that come through and maybe - 

God. Where's the real Big Boss at anyways? Does anyone give a shit anymore?

They go back up to the bird cage for another smoke break. She takes the hits he gives her. Maybe they do a little something for her, maybe not.

"Did you see Kaz?" he asks after a while, voice dripping smoke.

Yeah? What about him?

Heavy sigh. "What do I do?"

Is that a question she's supposed to answer?

"He's not happy." 

He seemed fine enough to her just the other night. So what if he didn't wanna stick around for the party? Maybe he's waiting for Snake to come back and bang him already in which case, the double needs to grab a clue. You don't talk relationship trouble with your hot friend, dumbass.

The boss tilts back his head against the cage. Unties his ponytail to run his flesh hand through his hair while his cigar dangles from his lips. He grins around it, teeth clenched. "But, hey. What the hell would I know about what makes him happy."

Wait, seriously? The whole gotta get Skull Face, revenge boners, six-digit paychecks. Just to make Miller happy. 

He's staring at her now. Right, one of her arms detached. Some of the vultures have mites in their feathers. Must be hard to find a veterinarian in a war zone. He watches her arm reform with that look again. The one she'll never, ever be able to place. 

"So Ocelot wants to put you to work on base. Think you'd like to snipe some rats for us?"

What the fresh fuck, Miller. Having that much trouble getting it up he can't even talk to his Snake about her?

Still, _hell yes._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's time to confess that this fic follows [Wine and Vinegar](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12570024/chapters/28630532), but with the Commander Parasite mod installed and one very different player choice that opens up a new story-line.
> 
> It's also time to tell you that if you haven't read [Look, It's Not What it Sounds Like](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10150622/chapters/22554149) what are you even doing here get out of here! go read it! And while you're at it, go ahead and read some Jorge Cervantes.


	4. THE HARVEST

So turns out cockroaches kinda taste like lobster. Who knew?

She’s killing it on pest control duty. Spackler’s wet dream without all the Three Stooges shit. Boosting general health among Diamond Dogs, even. Seems every time a squad comes back from whatever AO on the other side of the Indian Ocean, some kind of invasive species is playing piggyback. For all that they might quarantine and scrub the sides of the choppers, the odd rat still makes it through carrying six new STDs. Even Miller and the boss got laid up with an infection from something he caught in Africa.

Yeah, you’d think Miller would be on his knees eating her out at this point. The man needs to ease up on the blow. The boss looks like Miller just kicked DD when he lays into him for letting the "spy" run all over base. Like it wasn't his idea in the first place.

If his rotting parasites had something to say to her, they could damn well say it while she’s covering the roaches in the mess kitchen or, say, in his own filthy closet bedroom. She left a half-dissolved rat inside his shoes once and the screams echoed from combat to R&D.

Hell, he’s still at it. She’s just trying to trail some new species of inchworm clinging to the supply containers on base development but Miller’s right there. Having one of his weekly coked-up PMS fits with Ocelot where he spits regurgitated gin everywhere.

Ocelot taps his boot impatiently. Are spurs some kind of secret gay code, like if you wear them one way you’re a top and another way you’re a bottom? “Miller, I know for a fact you have more than one way of keeping eyes on her.”

The parasites? But in the next breath Ocelot's talking about the bugs and mics and heat-vision cameras everywhere. Miller's built one hell of a paranoia network.

“That’s not the point!”

“The point is she’s saved the Boss’s life. More than enough times. Not only that, but she provided crucial data on the vocal cord parasites that saved your entire army.” That’s one way to put it. Geez, the moment she thinks Ocelot’s got her back he starts talking about her like some specimen again.

“The point is you’re undermining my authority in front of the men. The point is that for all that -”

Ocelot laughs, oddly deep. “Miller, we both know damn well why she scares you.”

“Hey - wait - get the hell off me!”

Scraping of the peg leg. Something slamming against the supply container. Are they about to -

“Trouble in paradise, hmm? Tell me. When’s the last time you ever felt like Snake was really there?”

“Yeah, well, when’s the last time he fucked you? Did he ever, or did he just fill your spank bank while he stuck it in one of his other blonde spying _bitches_ -”

And, yep, that was definitely a moan.

Miller’s gonna cheat on _him_ with slimestache over here? Oh boy, she is three seconds away from giving them the ultimate popcorn spilling jumpscare.

Doesn’t Miller know she’s right here? What are his parasites even up to right now? Hey, assholes, she can hear you -

Oh holy crap she didn’t see to see THAT.

But he’s thinking of it right now. Even as Ocelot rubs smegma all over his gloves.

Those Russians. They uh. They really did a number on him.

Damn.

Whoa.

They’ve stopped, um, making out. Miller’s shaking, but he smacks Ocelot with his crutch without falling over. Ocelot kind of just blinks and mumbles to himself for a minute.

And then they both fuck off to go get high. Between Cheech and Chong's sexual tension and the world’s deadliest Muppet it’s a wonder Diamond Dogs even functions.

Well, now she knows why Miller’s so wasted all the time. That happens sometimes. Some people just can’t move past shit. If you asked her, she’d say they have zero place on the battlefield, but what does she know.

Finally she gets her inchworms. Right, back to the fun part. At least the more _eccentric_ Miller gets the more the boss wants to get away with her. In which case, by all means, let him screech all he wants.

She’s riding in the jeep with him for once, eyes on their snoozing passengers while DD drooling in shotgun, when he taps her on the shoulder.

“Got something for you.”

What’s this? A slim, flat cardboard box. Inside is some sort of combat suit - similar to what the Skulls wear, but with DD logos.

“R&D’s been working on a little something. Might work well for you. It’s breathable.”

Yes. And light filtering.

She’s got the Diamond Dogs armband for all Miller whines, and she’s totally sure the middle-aged men are worried about her maybe feeling insecure about being naked in the sausage party. The female Diamond Dogs don’t go around flashing tits and ass all day, doesn’t she want to be like them?

See, that’s just the thing. Nothing powerful men hate more than an equally powerful woman. She’s gonna milk that up as soon as she gets back to base.

But first, let’s wake up the new recruits. Hey, how about a pay raise? That old diamond mine, yeah, we own it now motherfuckers and the buds and blow might as well be rationed. Hi, local monster here, don’t go trying any shit.

And the boss just smiles. Gets their names, their old villages. Kind of dumb considering that they’re just going to get new names and their villages have already been sacked and raped, but whatever. The monster and the mascot do a pretty good job bringing in recruits. She’d tell him the whole Kumbaya and pass the peace pipe session is a waste of time, but what the hell.

There’s a lot of shit she’d love to tell him. Ocelot and Miller’s soap opera antics, for a start. One of those monster badgers he’s been looking for is about two kilometers to his three crunching down a snake. There’s a pangolin in the tree she’s whipping past right now, and while she doesn’t have any cages on her…

The pangolin doesn’t like her. Scratches until she bleeds black. Fucked with the wrong monster, sorry. Could’ve had a nice life in the boss’s zoo but nope. Law of the wild, bitch.

Ah, shit. Good thing the boss didn’t see that. Speaking of the boss, where the hell he is he?

Gunfire?

Shit, how he did get all the way - over here, six kilometers ahead of her already. Looks like the zebra he wanted was snoozing right in the line of sight. A small guardpost - five of them?

There he is. Curled behind a roadblock hurling grenades. She takes care of the last two. No time to extract the artillery, though, because he’s still lying down. Knees up. Bleeding from the gut.

Hey, she made it just in time. She can fix this. The bullet didn’t completely shoot out his stomach. Parasites confirm, it just passed through the muscles. He’ll be fine.

“Hold on,” he gasps, even finding the strength to chuckle. “Don’t even try to take it out.”

Okay, okay. Medkit? Right here, he’s got it.

“Careful, careful,” he says when she tries to tear open his shirt. “And your hands are filthy. Use the wipes first.”

Hah, see, he’s fine, and who knew he was such a bad patient? But he keeps talking through the whole process. How to place the dressing without making a mess of it. How to tie him up securely. Don’t try to lift him, don’t try to move him. Pequod’s on his way. Might be the most words she’s ever heard him say at once. And Pequod, the champion, the true hero of the goddamn day, comes running out of the chopper to help her carry him in.

He’s fine. He’s headed home. All talked out, though.

Did he get his zebra, at least?

“Huh?” He’s squinting at her.

The zebra he just killed three guys to get?

“No, Quiet. I didn’t get the goddamn zebra.”

Right. Sorry.

After - all that. Kind of awkward in the chopper. She sits on her hands and looks at her parasite-ridden boots. She’s put the pieces together by now. Whenever the program freezes, he goes straight for the animals. This isn’t the first time it’s gotten him in trouble.

“Quiet?”

She’s here.

“Did anyone ever ask you your name?” He shouldn’t be raising his head like that.

Her name? Nope.

He’s just giving her a funny look. Well, maybe she can write it in the layer of red dust on the floor. No, her name doesn’t start with a Q, it starts with a -

Oh, come on. Her name’s -

They called her that in XOF, right? Her old handler. Whathisface.

The boss is chuckling at her. She hisses, pulling back her wandering finger. That old dead bitch got set on fire anyways. Sniper Quiet’s just some big dumbass plant monster.

“It’s okay. I don’t know mine either. Jack, right? Or was it John?” The bad smile again.

Whoa there, Alice coming down from her trip already? But he just turns his head away. Passes out soon after.

She sits next to Pequod for the rest of the trip.

So the boss is laid up for a while after that. She can’t even see him because Miller’s too busy frothing and festering at his bedside, leaving her to just drip all over the platform while his parasites completely ignore her. Ocelot tells her she did well, like she knows the first damn thing about field medicine. Like the whole thing wasn’t her -

At least he’s back on his feet within two weeks. Kind of slow, still grounded. He’s cool with it, though. Sits around with his shirt off playing some stick pickup game with the little charity cases. The ones that he picked up from the mine seem to be his favorite.

Yeah, she never liked kids, but what the hell.

So one day she snatches a water gun off one of them and shoots the kid right in the face.

Oh, it’s on now. They’ve all got water guns and can’t aim to save their lives. The boss actually laughs, arms wrapped around his bandages. Elephant-necklace actually manages to grab his water gun back - fine, she lets him, and when she surrenders and lets them all give her a drink the boss just gives her that smile again.

So when little Ralphie or Piggy or whatever his name was throws the elephant necklace in an open sanitation tank, like, of course. Sniper Quiet, local pest control expert and savior of the goddamn free world comes busting in like Superman. Way cheaper than a HAZMAT team, too.

Whoops. Apparently plants don't take well to chlorine gas. Now she’s the one getting swept off her feet.

It’s hell. It’s worse than when she first woke up. She’s all yellow and blistered and spends six days sitting in a flushing tank and another six in bed. The boss comes to see her and she can’t even look right for him, her legs go full goop and refuse to cooperate. There's no hand for DD to lick but he puts a paw on the edge of the bed, whimpering.

Sorry DD. You can’t fix this one.

The boss doesn’t even mind what a useless shit monster she’s turning out to be. Just keeps showing up. Flicks through his iDroid to shows her the latest pictures from the zoo, his one little goat he named Marshmallow Puff or something. Plays all his favorite tapes for her, his Chaka Khan and George Clinton and her real favorite, that new Prince.

She’d say her favorite song is Let’s Go Crazy, that’s a good one to pump her up before a mission. The parasites love the tempo of I Would Die 4 U, and yeah, baby, she is a star. But the boss’s favorite is Purple Rain. Of course it is. The guitar slows down and fills the hospital room and her struggling parasites find peace humming along to that. He’s dozing now. Snoring a little bit.

Fucking buzzkill Miller must have been waiting for the tape to end. He comes in softly, though. Puts a hand on the boss’s shoulder and whispers in his ear.

“Come on, Snake. Let her get some rest, huh?”

“Mm. Sorry, I -”

“Shh. You need it, too.”

“But she’s -”

“I’ll keep an eye on her. Come on.” He presses a dry kiss to his cheek, but his parasites are on her. Rub it in, huh? Just dump seawater all over the wound. Petty old bastard.

But when the boss and DD leave, he doesn’t start cursing her out and calling her a spy. Or anything at all, really. Just pulls the chair a little closer. Sits there staring at her through his glasses.

Weird, but it’s a relief to go full goop. Still patchy brown in places. He never looks away when she melts.

All Miller says is, “I met him eleven years ago.”

Yeah. When he failed his first ever combat tour and realized he’d have to sleep his way to the top.

“He was the most patient man I ever knew.”

Big Boss? Really?

Oh hold on a second.

What are his parasites seeing? Kind of blurry, filtered through the light of the jungle. Tall guy. Burly with a crew cut. Carrying a sloth across some sodden mud road.

He was a medic?

Wait, wait, bring him back, hold on, she’s gotta see this, but Miller writes fast even with his left hand. She dribbles an arm over his hand to see.

I’M NOT AN IDIOT, he writes, and says, “Snake and I were partners in a way you could never understand. For years.”

I KNOW YOU'RE NOT THE SPY.

“Think he likes you, huh? You have no idea what I’ve been through for that man. Ten days I waited for him. Ten _fucking days_ while the maggots ate up my stumps.”

BUT I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU KNOW.

She points to the door the boss just walked through. It’s not a real hand, just a frothing black shape, but she holds up a peace sign. V for victory. Two for two.

His nod is almost imperceptible. AT DHEKELIA? “I didn’t break. Snake knows that. He knows just how far I’d go for him.”

Yeah. At Dhekelia.

“And you think you can come between that? You think he’d leave me - what, for a pair of bug-ridden tits? I gave up half my body for him, bitch. Why would he even look twice at yours?” No shit she doesn’t trust Ocelot. Look at that mustache. Who would. Miller even draws it on the winking kitty face.

She thought the gangbang was bad, but now the parasites are seeing things she really doesn’t need to see. That time Miller would’ve gotten his head shot right across a table piled with cash? That was the trashed hotel room in Dubai she’d picked through. That typhoon they got caught in, when Ocelot’s dinky fishing boat capsized? She had to wait forever for the dive team to recover that wreckage. There was some grade-A black tar hidden in with the shells.

All right, she gets it. Has she heard him whining and moaning outside of Ocelot’s presence?

She’d pose that it’s extremely difficult to trick a man’s old lover, even after nine years. The body double has like, five centimeters on Big Boss. Turns out Miller’s been paranoid for a while, and he’s pretty damn sure Ocelot’s pulling some freaky wool over his eyes. Hypnosis sounds like a long shot, though.

No wonder Miller and the boss have been having relationship issues. How long has Miller been trying to work this out?

“Listen, slut,” he hisses, grating. “If you don’t back the hell off, consider yourself discharged from pest control and back in the brig. Wouldn’t want that, huh?”

So he just wants her to plant some bugs in the not-so-secret room Ocelot disappears into sometimes to lay around in an opiate coma. He even used to drag Miller along with him - the guy may prefer the reds to the blues, but there were a couple times when she first arrived on base. Hey, don’t ask her how she knows the signs of opiate withdrawal.

It’ll take her like thirty seconds to do this. And then when he and Ocelot finally give in and fuck she’ll bring the tapes straight to their precious Snake. See how they finesse their way out of that one.

Hah, yeah, that’d be a dream come true.

The bad news is that bedroom is already bugged to hell. The good news is that since XOF cleared out of OKB-0 the Red Army's taking it back, and pretty soon Major Ocelot’s going to have to actually do some work for once in his life. All right, all right. She’s on it. Give her a damn raise already.

Wait, does she even get paid in anything besides rotting rat meat?

Eh, it’s something to do. DD’s going to be the one watching the boss’s back for a while now anyways.

 

There isn’t even anything that exciting in Ocelot’s room. A bunch of drugs and some dusty radio equipment that hasn’t been touched in years. Easiest job she ever had.

She goes back to lie down in her room, the cell she barely hangs out in anymore. But she has a feeling she needs to just, chill for a while. Ease off on the pest control. Music still works just as well to pacify the parasites.

Miller doesn’t even let her get through the Isley Brother's finest. His parasites reach her before Stone Lizard or whoever does, but she doesn’t need a ride back to the command office. She comes pouring through the vents that don’t do shit to clear out the reek in here.

Miller’s dressed down again, chewing on his pen while she drips down to puddle on the opposite chair. So what’s the next stage in his plan to throw Ocelot off a helipad? Nothing. Just going to wait and see what the bugs pick up.

Did she want him to grab anything else from his room while he’s out? No, Miller doesn’t go for the downers anymore. So what’s the deal, then?

“Grow some ears,” he tells her, and throws her a headset.

Ah, it’s the boss. Looks like a tongue bath from DD isn’t always enough to bring him down.

“I can’t deal with him when he’s like this,” Miller says. “Just do whatever you do. Hum to him. Snap your fingers. Morse code or whatever. Here, use this,” he says, throwing an iDroid at her. “S’got… uh, text capabilities. Like a pager. Ask him about his zebras.”

She’s not going to text him. That’d open up a whole can of worms. He knows it's her the moment she breathes.

Got his zebra this time. Nice work, buddy. She’d name that one, uh, Marblecake maybe. It can be Marshmallow’s best friend.

Miller just drinks and stares at her. Puts on one of those tapes the boss loves, the Mothership Connection. She’s surprised Miller listens to this kind of stuff, but apparently there’s a whole lot of rhythm going down when Commander Smegma gets some booze in him. When the boss settles in for a nap or a dope session he even busts out the coke.

“What, you got somewhere to be?”

Not really. Besides, the boss might need her again.

“Can you even get high anymore?”

She doesn’t know how parasites feel about blow, but he’s setting up lines for her anyways before handing her a crisp bill. He laughs until he drools when her nose goes straight to black cloud and the parasites starts buzzing.

Hah. Maybe she can? Shit, the only time she bothers to hold this body anymore is when she’s around the boss, so who knows what she's missing out on. Miller changes the music and now they really are gonna party like it’s 1999. Might as well give it another go, even.

Tell her about that guy. The medic.

"Field medic. Before the medical draft he was an EMT. Seen shit you wouldn't believe, but I never saw his hands shake."

Nine years later his hands are steady as ever. Yeah. She can see that.

“You know all that music was his.”

The funky stuff, the Mo-Town? So he really was some kind of hippie?

“Like you wouldn’t believe.”

So what, were they banging back in the seventies too?

“Hah. No. Nothing like that.”

Come on.

“What do you care? Aren’t you fucking him already?”

Seriously, how many holes has he been burning in his brain. He snorts on his drink, chuckling.

“Right, right. Kind of hard to stick it in a puddle of goo.”

Are you shitting her? Don't forget, this is what she looks like around the boss. These tits. Miller just chuckles while she makes them swell a bit, shaking his head. “Yeah, I’d like to see how long you can keep that up.”

Oh, he wants to try her? When she straddles his lap and pushes them in his face Miller just huffs. But he leans forward, almost nuzzles her chest before flicking one nipple with his tongue.

Sure Miller’s gross, but what the hey. It’s not like she doesn’t eat dead rats every day. Besides, everypne knows sluts have more fun, and the weirdos are always good in bed.

And maybe the parasites get a little bit excited when his eyes drip like that. When he starts sucking on one tit while kneading the other, god, she used to love this. Please, please let her get wet, c’mon, parasites, let her drip all over his sweat-stiff khakis.

Can she? Come on, focus. There’s got to be some nerve endings left there. She can do it. Focus, girl. Just like the good old days in Skull Face’s special school for gifted snipers, bubble vision or whatever. She’s got this.

Aw, what the hell. She goes full goop all over him the moment he crooks a finger inside her, and then he’s just spreading his fingers to watch her stretch out between them. Yeah, for all that she tried, pussy juice isn’t black.

Miller just shrugs while she pulls back from his fingers and coagulates back on the other chair.

“Don’t worry about it. He’s kind of a freak himself, you know. You’ll figure something out.”

What, he’s giving her his blessing? Ew, not his stinky ass hat.

“Commander Quiet, huh? How you like the sound of that? Position might be opening up soon. I’ll tell you right now, nothing gets me through a day of paperwork like a mountain of Columbia's finest. Here.” He tosses her a binder.

Christ, he’s got order lists for every platform, divided in the most practical terms of who needs what and where it’s stored. Toilet paper's the same priority as ammo in Miller's book. Every internal chopper flight and dive team drop logged and calculated and broken down to the last penny in terms of cost. Pages and pages of float charts and now he’s gone straight from nasty but bangable to Professor Skull Face. If he knew how to party and got off on CPA algorithms.

Yeah, no, she would have to be injecting pure speed and have a PhD to deal with this shit. Wasn’t Miller just some Japanese cop who knew how to suck dick good?

Why is he showing her all this anyways?

He gets just the nastiest little grin on his face then. Parasite goop drips below his shades. “When Ocelot walks in that door, he’s gonna kill me. Not you. No, he’ll scrape you up in a hundred little jars to put in cold storage forever.”

What the hell?

Son of a bitch. While she’s been distracted trying to get high and get off, Ocelot’s already landed back on base. Headed straight for the office. This whole little game has just been, what? Miller trying to make his ex jealous? Yeah, peace out.

She still leaves a few parasites hanging around because, let’s be real, it would be pretty wild if Ocelot killed him right there. Try to wheedle his way out of that one to the boss.

Miller’s a lot more cross-faded than she thought. Ocelot keeps more needles on him than she thought. Their big showdown is just Miller sniffling and mumbling while Ocelot just does that slow feline blink. At least Miller doesn’t snitch on her.

“Go ahead,” Miller hisses. “Do whatever you’ve been doing. Make me fucking forget already.”

“Miller -”

“Do it!”

“I’ve never once underestimated your intelligence.” He sounds awake, for once in his life.

“Please, you underestimated me right from the start. I would’ve made it two weeks. Coulda made it a month. Not like I was expecting to -”

“You know me well enough to know I’ve never done anything for a single reason.”

No tanuki ballsacks this time, huh. Nothing from Miller at all. “Yeah, I’m sure there’s a hundred and one reasons why you had to saw off half my body.”

"Do you want to hear them?”

“Yeah, yeah. Let's go down to - to - to the good old Revolver Ocelogic dimension. Try twisting the other arm.”

Ocelogic? That’s a good one. They're scuffling again.

“I’ve done this before. Goes like clockwork every time. You wake up six hours later back with your Snake and this little stunt never happened.”

Silence. Miller sniffs. What's Ocelot holding to his neck?

"Are you ready?"

“...What’s the _or?_ ”

Ocelot hums. “Or you decide to play on the winning team for once.”

A soft sound like - gross. That’s one unholy meeting of crab-infested facial hair right there. Miller’s sputtering, but he sure isn’t pulling away.

Oh what the hell, she doesn’t need to see this. All this shit over, what, a watch?

Whatever. So now they’re back in sister-wife paradise, Miller’s finally in on Ocelot’s little spy games and pencil-dick cures PTSD. Maybe now Miller will quit screeching at her and take down those stupid posters. Besides, this only gives her free reign to make a move on the boss.

Yeah. As if.

God dammit.

By the time the boss and DD get back there isn’t a bug or rat left on base. She waits at the helipad for him. Covers up the mites clinging to his fatigues. DD gives her a kiss that makes her cheek drip a little bit, but the boss just smiles down at her. Says she’s looking good.

Yeah, thanks. Hit her up after the worst breakup of his life.

But the second big bang never comes. No, Miller straight up starts ignoring everybody all of a sudden. His parasites are silent and he keeps ten feet of distance between him and Ocelot at all times. Stands up the boss completely and only speaks to him to whine about how he extracted his goats to the wrong platform. Give the guy a break, he was dissociating.

She’d hate herself too if she ever let Ocelot’s dick within two inches of her pussy. Really screwed the pooch this time, Miller.

The boss just sighs when Miller stomps away from him snarling and goes to his weird depression balcony on the medical platform. Kind of close to her cell, but she usually leaves him alone when he’s looking at his old pictures. Not like he ever recognizes her anyways when he’s there.

He doesn’t even notice when she phases up next to him. Nope, full-blown lost in the woods right now.

Doesn’t anyone else even notice?

Hey, big guy - crap. Well, wherever he is right now, he’s safe. She snatches his Walkman and puts on his favorite Isley Brothers. Summer breeze always makes him feel fine.

He comes to as the sun is rising. Blinks at her. Looks down at the photo in hand. Some little blonde girl and a cat?

“Did you ever meet Paz?”

No, she didn’t.

“Tried to save her.”

Yeah. He was the medic.

“But she’s not here either. Heh.” He runs his red hand up his face. Through his hair. “Happens to the best of us, doesn’t it?”

Why does he have to talk like this all the time? She scoots closer to him, like she’s just trying to take a peek at the kid. His breath is sweet on the back of her neck.

When she dares to look up at him he’s just. Right there.

He lets her kiss him. Lets her slip inside his mouth. Doesn’t stop her from twisting up over him. Pinning him down and crawling on top, slipping inside his fatigues. His skin is warm, tastes like the desert and his dog and his own sweat. She drifts lower and he just raises one hand to drift through her swarm.

Oh what the -

How long has she just been a big puddle of parasites?

He doesn’t laugh at her like Miller did, even as she drips and bubbles trying to get her shit together. Doesn't call after her either when she disappears, but the red fingers twitch.

Maybe she should have taken that parasite suit after all.

Miller acts like he doesn’t know what the hell she means when she finds him on R&D. Yeah, the fucking parasite suit, like that wasn’t also his plan. His parasites are just quietly festering, but she makes herself clear enough.

“Oh, that old thing? It was made for Snake.”

Don’t even mess with her. She could drop the bomb about his affair with slimestache anytime she wants.

“Huh. Well, if you like. Could use a redesign, though. We didn’t exactly make it to your specifications.”

All right, fine. She hasn’t had an appointment with good old Frog in a while. Can they get this done already?

Miller gets right down to business about it at least. Maybe they can make it more fashionable. All cool and sleek and black. Just like Catwoman, yeah. Julie Newmar can kiss her ass. Just wait till the boss sees her in this, huh? He's out picking flowers for a while. She can wait.

But now she’s got the flu or something. How is that even possible? Frog says she’s fine, though. Yeah, the last time they told her she was fine…

Her throat is sore. No, her throat is burning.

And a hundred other throats feel it too.

The quarantine platform is readied quickly enough. Every survivor of the last infection - every last goddamn one of them - is scooped up and delivered ASAP. Miller’s jaw is tight as he dispatches each chopper, and his parasites are still silent.

It was an accident. That's it.

Should have left that day. Should have killed them both that night.

Let the boss come back to a base full of dead men.

Of course he comes back the moment he gets the news. Of course he does it himself. Miller tries to hold him back, but in the end hands him a gas mask.

As his chopper leaves, Ocelot move to stand behind Miller. Place two steady hands on his hips.

Had to have been an accident.

He’s so careful to make headshots. She watches his elbow tremble when he aims. Watches him set down the single survivor and look for any sign that it isn't too late. Watches his finger jump on the trigger. She doesn't know why she's watching this.

She's quite high up on one of the struts on the quarantine platform now. Day drifts into night. Bodies are dragged out and set aflame. Miller disappears into the shadows while the boss stays still.

It’s over. It was already over.

One by one they all drift away, save for the boss. He isn't pulling out his pipe or turning on his Walkman, just sitting there. Rubbing his face.

All that and patient zero's still out there.

There's nothing she can do.

In the morning she leaves. Hitches onto the side of a chopper just like the bugs do. No plan.

The entire damn brigade is waiting for her the moment she lands. They know exactly how to handle her. Like fuck if she's gonna let _them_ be the ones to kill her. Maybe she imagines two other faces when she tears them all to shreds.

Of course they send the boss after her next. The mascot and the monster put up a good fight, all right.

What's it to Ocelot if that next missle hits the boss right in the face? Miller will write off the cost in his books.

God, please, stop trying to save her. It's fine. She could just eat that snake, please, stop.

Of course she talks. The one that listens has already learned to sing. She leaves him there in the sands.

Just let her have this. One cassette. What does she tell him? There isn’t enough time. She runs out of tape too soon.

It was fun while it lasted? Too late to say that.

Too late for anything.

Yes, it’s happening. The burning and oozing while she sinks into the grit. The scorpions avoid her, the ants change their routes. The sand does not irritate her anymore, she slips over and around each individual grain.

A glint of light at the edge of the horizon. A white windowless van travelling across the dunes. The HAZMAT team scrapes her up. Every last piece. Put her in a hundred little jars and then

It is cold

 

it is dark

 

it is **quiet**

 

 

 

a voice:

_the end was far from the end of it_

_what you see before you demonstrates exactly why_

_man picks up a stick_

 

 

and it is quiet. 

 

 

Two eyes open.

A body.

A naked female body inside a cool glass box. Air filtered and recycled. Cold white light. Two old men.

“Told you it would work.”

“Heh. Looks just as good as she did thirty years ago.”

“Why, Miller, you sly -”

“Not in front of the kids, hey?”

“Speaking of which…”

“Hey, you, get over here. You're gonna have to get used to this kind of thing, you know.”

White blonde hair. Wide terrified eyes.

"Come on, Octopus. Don't be shy."

A kid?

She never liked -


End file.
